State farmers offer mixed picture

He works hard, watches the weather, keeps his eye on the latest trends on the farm. And he has sent his wife back to work.

Finances demanded it.

"It was a tough decision," said the Smith County farmer.

He isn't alone. Looking for income off the farm isn't a new trend.

During the Kansas Farm Bureau's annual Governor's Farm and Ranch Tour, farmer after farmer explained taking office work or sending their spouses to work off the farm to get a better handle on their health insurance bills, which have risen rapidly in recent years.

"The off-farm income has been vital to our existence out there," said Jim Dooley, of Jewell.

While running his own farm, Dooley for years had worked as a bank loan officer. His wife was a longtime schoolteacher.

They sat down recently and thought of their neighbors. Very few were earning their entire living from the land.

"That's not a real good statement on the condition of agriculture in the state of Kansas," he said.

But some are trying to push out of it.

Sasse's wife, in an effort to boost their income, has developed her own pumpkin patch out of a few acres of ground near their home. After just a few years, busloads of schoolchildren visit every year.

"It's an agritourism business which has become kind of the in-thing in rural Kansas," Sasse said.

It was part of a mixed picture painted by the Kansas Farm Bureau during its Monday tour of Smith and Jewell counties in north-central Kansas.

The organization raised a series of concerns -- such as rural depopulation, the cost of health care, the affordability of land and high property taxes. On the flip side, some small towns still have life, thanks to government grants, and most local school districts have maintained their funding, thanks to the hold-harmless Legislature.

"There seems to be a great resiliency," said Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who was on her fourth tour.

New office?

Sebelius on Monday said she planned to propose funding for a new Office of Rural Development that would employ economic development strategists to help small towns develop revitalization plans.

She said the Kansas Farm Bureau already has been working with communities on economic development plans, and her office likely would work with the farm organization.

"We want to take that a step further," she said.

The proposed office would be housed either in the state commerce or agriculture department.

But Sebelius said a key cog to rural economic development already has passed in the form of a new three-year, $541 million school finance plan approved this year by the Legislature. The measure boosted school spending for every school in the state, despite a legislative study showing small schools already are adequately funded.

"That makes a big statement," the Democratic governor said of the bill.

But farmers on Monday seemed to take the education plan with a grain of salt. While it added money to schools, it also increased the authority of local school districts to raise local property taxes.

Rural lawmakers have said the plan isn't fair because districts with high land values -- such as in urban Johnson County -- can generate new funds with greater ease than property poor areas like Smith County.

Farmer T.J. Lehmann said Smith County already has the fourth highest property tax mill levy in the state. Everyone wants good schools, he said, "But what price are we willing to pay for these services?"

"There may be a day when margins get so tight it's not worth it to farm in these high property tax counties," he said.

But Scott Lienberger, a Jewell school board member, said the Legislature's school finance plan may stave off new property taxes for a few years because it also adds money for all public school districts. At least the Legislature passed a plan, he said.

"It feels good to have that part behind us," he said.

In a phone interview, Sebelius' opponent, Emporia Sen. Jim Barnett, said the three-year school finance bill touted by the governor was too large and would drive the state into debt, forcing taxes to increase statewide. He said local property taxes should increase only after a public vote.

Of Sebelius' rural development plans, Barnett said tax cuts would work better than new government jobs.

"The way we grow the economy of western Kansas is to make our state a business-friendly state and lowering taxes," he said.

Two milk bids

Back in Jewell County, Lienberger said small schools have other burdens besides taxes. Part of it comes simply from their smallness.

His district solicited bids for milk and received just two. Only one bid came in for propane deliveries.

One reason, Lienberger said, was that vendors shy away from the liability insurance they have to pay in delivering to schools in comparison to the size of the contract.

But the district has been able to bolster funding for technology -- now issuing laptop computers to most secondary students, which still is rare in public schools, regardless of size.

"It's really helped our students as they've moved on," Lienberger said. "If we could just figure out a way to get them to move back."

The population in Jewell County has dropped 11 percent since 2000 -- to 3,356. In Smith County, 9 percent of residents have moved on in the same time frame.

Sen. Janis Lee, D-Kensington and a Smith County rancher, said depopulation has been natural. She argued that western Kansas was overpopulated with the 1862 Homestead Act and its 160-acre rule. That is too small to make a farm work in dry Kansas, she said.

"We've had to see a natural adjustment from that," she said.

Lee said the future in rural Kansas isn't as bleak as some may portray. More younger families are moving into her area, she said, and some older couples are choosing to retire in small-town Kansas.

The weather also hasn't been as bleak. Three inches of rain fell over much of the area during the past two weeks. Mud marked most of the farmsteads on the governor's tour Monday.

Dooley, the Jewell County farmer, said the fall crops -- soybeans and milo -- should be above average.